A Note to My Readers:
The names used for the students and their
family members in this article are, in the manner of my typical practice, data
privacy pseudonyms.
Thriving.
I am amazed
and honored to convey the abiding situation with such unqualified phrasing.
When I last
wrote about this trio in October 2016, I was able to convey that the lives of
Damon, Javon, and Evelyn had taken a decided upswing. Evelyn had largely extricated herself from
her relationship with Marcel Gifford and was taking necessary legal action to
keep him from coming around the new duplex in Coon Rapids to which I moved the
family in my 2008 Toyota Matrix late last July 2016.
Evelyn’s
restraining order on Marcel has been effective in keeping him away. He tried to check in a couple of times on
Facebook but Evelyn held to her principles and plan of action, reminding him
that even that means of contact was a violation. Marcel, who lived the gang life in Chicago
and was involved in enough nefarious activity as to want to keep clear of the
court system in Minnesota, ultimately got the message and has now kept both his
physical and electronic distance from Evelyn and her boys.
I have had
the supreme joy of seeing the tension leave the faces of all three members of
this family of people endeavoring
against great odds to make a way for themselves in the world. Easy smiles have replaced fear and vexation in
the countenances of all three. And
Evelyn, who this time last year was several pounds overweight, sleeping
fitfully, and struggling with an array of mental demons that have haunted her
all of her life--- now has shed much of
the extra weight, has the look of a rested human being, and is making great
progress in processing the disturbing experiences from a life that both early
on in Chicago and since coming to Minnesota has known far too much abuse in way
too many forms.
When I
arrive these days to pick up Damon for transport to our weekly academic sessions
at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, the scene is so much different from
what it ever was at any of the other residences to which I had followed his
family: two in North Minneapolis, one in
far South Minneapolis, and that last one on the East Side in St. Paul:
The duplex
is tidy.
There is
less smell of cigarette smoke and none of reefer.
Evelyn and
the boys are relaxed, in the midst of enjoyable activities undistracted by any
troubling episodes of the type that had mounted in St. Paul.
I have
always been able to keep Damon and Javon on an ascendant course at school, but
my efforts throughout the eight years that I have known this family of
necessity required a tremendous expenditure of time and energy. I still give the family huge amounts of my
time, but in the greatly improved environmental and attitudinal context of the
present my efforts are now overwhelmingly expended for purposes directly moving
these three striving souls onto those ascendant courses rather than for the removal
of obstacles.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Damon is
poised to earn the Student of the Year
Award again (I gave him that honor at last year’s Annual New Salem
Educational Initiative Banquet) among the 125 students and family members in my
network.
He is a
quite extraordinary young man and he responds with alacrity to every challenge
that I place before him. At just Grade
8, Damon has transcended the achievements of even some of my very fine high
school and college students. Damon has
now read the first three chapters (Economics,
Psychology, and Political Science) of my nearly completed fourteen-chapter book, Fundamentals
of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, written to give my students a
full array of knowledge sets in the subject areas of economics, psychology,
political science, world religions, world history, American history, African
American history, literature, English usage, the fine arts, mathematics,
biology, chemistry, and physics.
The text is
written at a level appropriate for high-achieving upper high school and
university students, and intellectually ambitious adults. At only Grade 8, Damon has reviewed each of
these chapters for full mastery, and incorporated the knowledge attained into
our discussions of journal and newspaper articles.
That is to
convey, I communicate to my students that knowledge attained should be
knowledge retained--- that knowledge is
to be treasured and applied to an understanding and betterment of this world.
And Damon
gets all of this.
He has
imbibed my message thoroughly and with gusto.
This is a
young man who has seen the deep and foreboding dark caverns of life and has
emerged with an immense yearning for the light at the heights. When Damon expressed an interest in pursuing
a career in law, I went through various fields for him to consider beyond those
courtroom displays from the sphere of criminal law that get such exposure on
television dramas. I told him about such
fields as environmental law, entertainment law, marriage and family law,
corporate merger law, and contract law.
He decided that the latter sounded interesting.
Damon, most
of whose family members never finished high school let alone matriculated
beyond, is from what I can discern the only Grade 8 student at Coon Rapids
Middle School aspiring at this juncture to be a contract lawyer, even in a community
well-populated with university-educated professionals.
Damon is at
the top of his accelerated math class and has a report card full mostly of A’s,
with a few B’s.
His
vocabulary at this point is sophisticated and his writing is expressive and
frequently eloquent. Eight years into
his participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative, and four years away
from his projected university experience, Damon is developing increasing levels
of knowledge on a well-established base that will maximize his opportunities
for success in the years ahead.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
When I
deliver Damon back home after our weekly academic sessions, for the sake of
time I work with Javon and Evelyn (who has now also become my student) right at the
table in their dinette. The latter reference
implies the existence of furniture, which was absent in the St. Paul
apartment; on those days when for the sake
of time I worked with Javon and Damon at that abode, we’d work sitting in the
hallway for lack of light and anywhere to sit inside. The new residence has a living room with
adequate amount of furniture, as well as the table in the dinette.
Javon and
Evelyn and I work academic magic at that table.
Javon is only
in Grade 2, but he has full knowledge of his multiplication tables and zooms
through reading material at Grade 5 level.
I do a lot of explicit vocabulary building with Javon, so that words
such as amicable, bountiful, concordant, prescient, and empathetic present no
challenge for him. At Grade 2, he finds
these vocabulary items well within the range of comprehension and extension
into his own verbal expression, thereby achieving and exceeding verbal skill levels
more typically associated with children of the upper middle and upper economic
strata.
Evelyn, who
back in Chicago was one of the few from her family who did graduate from high
school and even took a few classes at a community college, has in her study
with me regained control of all pre-algebra
concepts and has moved into a study of algebra and geometry. She now has vocabulary lists that I have generated
for her that total 150 highly sophisticated words. She will soon be reading Fundamentals of an Excellent
Liberal Arts Education with me and on her own and is even as I write
this applying to the closest community college in Coon Rapids.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
So this is
quite a story of the lives of three members of a family, long stuck at the
lowest economic level observed in the United States, now full of hope for
ending generations of cyclical poverty through the power of education.
I endeavor
with each day to serve my students and their families, with full application of
what my West Texas pappy called, “elbow grease.”
But providing
direct academic instruction to my students and multiple services to their
families constitute only part of my 16 to 18 hour days working full speed to
impel the changes in K-12 education via the various venues and platforms I have
created.
This is the
commitment of a revolutionary whose life is guided by the conviction that the
overhaul of K-12 education is the most important mission imaginable.
The provision
of a knowledge-intensive K-12 education is the foundation for a future in which
factual information and universally embraced ethics creates a world in which
peace and empathic understanding replace violence and cultural antagonism.
The
impartment of excellent K-12 education will also be our moral recompense due to
people such as Evelyn, Javon, and Damon---
who have waited a very long time for this nation to become the democracy
that we imagine ourselves to be.
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